


Let Me Hold Your Hand

by Teyke



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Lance is thirsty and occasionally in denial, M/M, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Shiro Is Not Okay, discussion of suicide & self-harm, pre-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 04:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teyke/pseuds/Teyke
Summary: In a surprising twist, Keith turns out to be the most clingy boyfriend ever, much to everyone else's amusement and/or frustration.Unless that's not what's going on at all.





	Let Me Hold Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back while waiting around for S2, so that's about when it's set. May or may not be accurate to anything that was revealed after S1.

In Lance's defense, he didn't walk in on anything. He was in the hallway _first_ when Shiro and Keith came out of Keith's room, Keith trailing after Shiro with one hand on his arm to slow him down. And sure, maybe Lance should have made some noise at that point, but his vocal cords seemed to have been paralyzed by the sight of Shiro's abs, because Shiro wasn't wearing a shirt, and holy _heck_. It wasn't like Lance didn't know that Shiro was built, because Shiro's clothing was so tight that sometimes Lance wondered how he didn't rip anything, but they were still clothes. They didn't show all the skin that Lance now had an eyeful of. They didn't show those _abs_ , or the smooth muscle, or all those scars that--Lance was pretty sure he was going to hell for this--stood out against Shiro's skin and gave him a scorching hot, downright _electrifying_ air of badassitude. 

Lance shut his mouth and wiped one hand across it to make sure he wasn't drooling. 

The movement must have attracted Keith's attention, because next thing he knew Keith had turned and stepped in front of Shiro, bristling like an angry cat. An angry, wet, sleep-deprived cat, because Keith looked like he'd gotten zero hours of sleep last night. 

And. Okay. Clearly there were other explanations for Shiro and Keith staying in the same room--Shiro wearing only sweatpants, Keith dressed down too--maybe they'd just stayed up talking about... something...

Shiro glanced at Lance and made a noise like a sigh, then shook his head and crossed to palm his door open. Keith reoriented on Shiro instantly, following him inside like Shiro was the only thing in existence, and sure, most days Lance would have been really ticked off at being dismissed like that. Buuuut maybe this was a special case. 

Lance gave the empty hallway two thumbs up, a silent offer of congratulation that he'd never have to admit to giving. He could afford to be magnanimous about this. 

He'd lay odds he was the first one to figure this out, and now he was going to get to give Keith _so much crap._

 

Part 1 of the plan didn't go so well, mostly because Shiro gave him a _look_ over breakfast. Shiro and Keith had come in together, of course, which made Lance frantically try to recall if they usually did that--what if this _wasn't_ new? He refused to be the last one to figure something out again! But he was pretty sure Keith didn't usually alternate between staring at Shiro and looking like he was about to doze off into his food goo. Not that Keith didn't look at Shiro a lot--and hey, Shiro was a magnetic kind of guy--but this was a new level of intensity, even for Keith. 

Shiro, for his part, looked pretty much exactly like he usually did, but Lance _did_ notice that he'd pulled the collar of his turtleneck an inch higher than he usually did. Was he covering up a hickey? For a moment Lance wished he hadn't spent all of his opportunity this morning staring at Shiro's abs, but--nah, totally worth it. He tried to catch Shiro's eye so he could waggle his eyebrows at him--not that he'd want to get hickeys from _Keith_ himself; he'd be dead before he got caught dating a guy with a mullet like that, not to mention the aggravating _Keith_ ness. But when Shiro glanced over, his brows drew down into a frown that _did_ make him look tired, and he shook his head very slightly. 

And... well, it was Shiro. Who maybe had enough crap to deal with already. Lance slumped a bit. So they wanted to keep it on the DL, he could do that. For a while. Until the others figured it out, and then he'd get to give _everyone else_ crap for being so slow on the uptake. Lance brightened. 

Keith, apparently hyper-attuned to Shiro this morning, followed Shiro's gaze and looked at Lance. And scowled. It made him look like an angry raccoon. 

Lance beamed back at him. 

 

"Wow," said Pidge, as Keith and Shiro left, simultaneously, for a 'bathroom break'. "They are _not_ subtle." 

Lance threw himself backwards, clapping his hands over his eyes. "Aggh, I _know_ , right?"

They'd spent the day doing indoor training, and Keith and Shiro had spent it glued to each other. Like, literally. Okay, not literally--after a certain training incident that Was No Longer Mentioned, Lance couldn't really say _that_ without bringing up horrific memories--but close enough that they might as well have been. Shiro had even looked mildly annoyed at first, but then they'd been gone for an extra long 'break' and when they'd come back, well, Lance wasn't going to imagine what must have happened, but since then Shiro had basically been as glued to Keith as Keith was to him. 

"You actually noticed, Lance?" Hunk asked, and Lance could hear him grinning, so he reached over for his water-bottle and threw it at Hunk's head. "Ow!"

Huh, his aim was improving. "It's not like they're subtle."

"Pidge being a girl wasn't subtle." 

"Hey, it fooled the Garrison!" Pidge protested. 

"Oh, come on," said Hunk. "Garrison security was _so bad_ , I could have hacked their records with an Intel octo--"

"Guys," Lance complained, sitting up to interrupt them. "No science talk, we have _much more interesting gossip_." He made finger-guns in the direction that Keith and Shiro had wandered off in. "Like, who do you think made the first move there?" 

"First move where?" asked Coran, wandering in. 

"Shiro and Keith are dating," said Pidge. She sounded bored. Actually--Lance looked over at her. She'd pulled out her computer. Well, geez! They were supposed to be gossiping! It was supposed to be _bonding!_

Coran twirled his mustache thoughtfully. "Oh, is that what that was about?" 

"Wait, wait," said Hunk. "Okay, not that I'm for interfering in anybody's love-life, or anything, that's not cool--but, Coran, this isn't a problem with being Paladins, it's not gonna, like, make us unbalanced or something, right? Because if it is, we--and by we, I mean you--definitely need to bring that up sooner than later, otherwise that's just gonna suck big-time." 

"Not gonna be the only thing sucking," Lance sing-songed, and this time Pidge threw her water bottle at him. 

"No, it happens," said Coran, still looking thoughtful. "Pairings, or triads--really it's only been a problem a few times with quartets, for obvious reasons, but even those have worked on occasionally, although quintets are the most stable. I should have a word with them, though, make sure that they're properly equipped for everything--I understand humans can conceive involuntarily, and we wouldn't want any accidents..." 

He wandered out. 

After another few seconds, Lance managed to raise a finger. "Uhh, who told Coran about human sex?" 

"Uhh." Hunk looked like his brain was just as broken as Lance's. "Did he seriously just suggest--like, that we should all--"

Pidge collapsed into snorting laughter. "Yeah, that's not happening--oh, man, he's going to give them _the talk_." 

"He's going to give them _condoms_ ," said Hunk, in horrified awe. 

"Pidge, please tell me you can get camera feeds of that," Lance begged. 

"No, no, no, no, no--" 

"No?" asked Shiro, and they all jumped a mile high. Lance twitched, rolled to his feet, and saw Shiro standing in the doorway, Keith--surprise, surprise--right behind him. "Guys, no breaking Hunk. Unless you like Coran's cooking." 

Pidge collapsed on the ground laughing. 

 

Sparring practice in the afternoon was hilarious. Lance kicked Keith's butt. No, he _destroyed_ him. When he had him on the mat for the third time in as many minutes, Lance grinned smugly down at him (not that Keith could see it, since Lance had him pinned on his front) and said, "Dude, you gotta stop making eyes at your boyfriend." 

"What?" asked Keith. 

That was when Hunk managed to flip Shiro--who landed just fine, because it was Shiro, but then was not fine a moment later when Hunk also landed, on top of him. Lance, who had maybe grown a bit distracted himself, abruptly found himself tossed up and across the mat, and when he got up, wheezing, he found that Keith had gone over to 'supervise' Hunk and Shiro's wrestling match. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was glowering. Poor Hunk, in the middle of slowly subduing Shiro (because in a friendly wrestling match, without the arm lit up to equalize things, even Shiro couldn't match Hunk: there was a _reason_ Lance's best bud had been champion of the Garrison three years running), had to withstand both Shiro's rather vicious escape attempts and Keith's even more vicious glare. 

"Hey," called Lance. "C'mon, man, we were in the middle of something!" He jabbed a thumb at his chest. "Namely, I was in the middle of kicking your ass!" 

Keith turned and transferred his glower. Behind him, Shiro went limp on the mat and then tapped out, and Hunk helped him up, looking nervously between him and Keith. Which, yeah. Keith could be kind of intense sometimes. 

"Pidge, tag in," Shiro called, and she grumbled, but set her laptop to the side and got to her feet. Shiro tapped Hunk on the shoulder. "Good job, buddy. Lance, you and Pidge pair off. Keith, against me." 

As he turned away, Lance couldn't help but catch Shiro's low words, "Keith, do you really think I'd--while sparring? With _anyone?_ " 

And, _wow_ , Lance knew that Shiro was a pretty self-contained guy, but that was--that was a lot of anger. Which, fair. Keith had been acting like a jealous idiot all afternoon and deserved to get called on it, but-- _ouch_. 

Well, Shiro had to be equally sleep-deprived. Served them right for staying up all night getting that no doubt ridiculously hot lovin' on. If 'ridiculously hot' was possible with Keith involved. Then again, Shiro's abs alone probably made it possible, without even getting to the rest of his musculature, not to mention the stupidly sexy scars, which Lance could never ever mention because Shiro would be Not Okay with that and, ugh, sometimes he hated his brain. 

"Head in the game, Lance!" yelled Pidge, and Lance didn't quite manage to snap out of it before her bayard's lasso tangled his legs and he went down. Point one to Pidge. 

Fighting Pidge was usually like trying to hold off an angry chihuahua, and it was even worse when she was armed with her taser-whip-grappling hook, so the lack of death-by-electricity was pretty telling. Lance gave in more easily than he could have, let her take an opening he normally would have closed, and wound up with her sitting on his back, her grip in his hair snug enough to let him know that she _could_ scalp him if she wanted to, but also that she was clearly being gentle and wanted the excuse to pause just as much as he did. After a moment Lance tapped out and she let him have his other hand back, and they sat that way for a while--Pidge didn't actually have the bodymass to hold anyone on the floor without first twisting a bodypart, usually fingers or thumbs, into some punishing grip, so Lance was content to chill. 

Shiro and Keith didn't notice. They went five rounds in quick succession, and the first three Shiro floored Keith so fast it was stupid, and then Keith started fighting back in earnest and still got floored. There was a weird, scrappy energy resonating between the two, and while it was definitely magnetic, it also wasn't very... nice. 

Hunk came up and joined them, but didn't sit down. "I feel like this is an invasion of privacy," he said, "Maybe we should give them the room for a bit." 

"Ew, _no_ , they can keep that to their quarters," said Pidge, and her weight vanished off of Lance. He scrambled to his feet just in time to see her send her grappling hook flying, wrapping around Shiro's metal arm and pulling him off balance in time for Keith to take him down with a foot-sweep--except Keith pulled it at the last second, and Shiro reflexively yanked back on the grapple hard enough to send Pidge flying forward. She whooped and landed with a roll. "New plan--free for all!" 

It wound up being Shiro and Keith vs the three of them, which Lance could have told Pidge was a) obviously how it was gonna end up, because _Keith_ , and b) a terrible idea. He did end up telling her, loudly, over dinner, while they were nursing their bruises and Shiro and Keith were off... celebrating their victory, or something. 'Talking', Shiro had said. Yeah, _right_. 

 

 

Two days later, Lance announced, "I bet a week of laundry that they don't make it to the end of the week." 

"End of the week? Give it, like, another day," said Pidge. "Keith'll fall over by then and Shiro'll have break up with him for his own good." 

"You'd think they could just stop doing the dirty all night--hey!" Lance protested, catching the juice pack Hunk had lobbed just before it could get him in the face. It _was_ true. Today's run in the lions had been disastrous, mostly due to Keith apparently _falling asleep_ in his. And, sure, Lance got it, Shiro was undeniably an Adonis--but he was more surprised at _Shiro_. Seriously, was Keith _that good?_

Nah. Couldn't be. Keith? No way. 

...He _couldn't_ be. 

Hunk was sitting up, looking prim and completely unrepentent for nearly beaning Lance. "I don't think we should be betting on our teammate's love-lives."

"You just say that because you don't want us asking you about Shaaa-aaay," Lance sing-songed. 

"I bet Shiro and Keith'll be done by end of today," Hunk said in a hurry. "Uh, but because I think Allura will order them to."

They contemplated that for a moment. Allura, it was safe to say, had not been pleased with today's practice, but Shiro had tipped his head at her and they'd gone off to discuss it in private. For once, that didn't mean Keith came along too--he still hadn't gotten back from Red's hanger. Actually, maybe they should go check that the guy hadn't fallen asleep. Though if he _had_ fallen asleep, maybe they should let him: Keith was seriously starting to resemble a zombie. On the other hand, he'd gotten that way by voluntarily staying up all night practicing the four-legged foxtrot, something none of the rest of them were getting to do (unless there was something Hunk and Pidge were not telling him--but, no, definitely not, and if so Lance _did not want to know_ , he _refused_ to be the only person on this team not getting any). So Keith deserved all the razzing that they could take. And not only because that had been a _terrible_ practice, and Lance could feel the mental bruises forming on his brain. 

He did appreciate that neither Shiro nor Keith had been broadcasting all of _that_ over their mental connection--because that would have been even more distracting, and also, he didn't need any more reason to be jealous of Keith right now. But he wished Shiro would give Keith some tips on how to keep his thoughts ordered or something, because, man. Shiro's link was as strong and smooth as usual, but Keith was so obviously trying to keep half his thoughts concealed that his mind felt like it was made out of jagged edges. Maybe he needed to take tips from Pidge--she'd managed to keep whole parts of her identity out of the link...

"Hey, Pidge," Lance started, and then was interrupted by the man in question. Keith stormed onto the deck like a long-haired Persian that had been ambushed by a hair-dryer. Even his mullet--his _mane_ , which he left _criminally underattended_ and yet which was always so freakishly, absurdly _perfect_ each and every morning, not that Lance would ever admit that to anyone except under the _direst pain_ \--had rebelled against him and was now a mess nigh unto Pidge's horrifying tangles. His skin was flushed, maybe with recent sleep, maybe from the exertion of sprinting from Red's hanger. 

He stopped dead in the doorway, one hand going up to the frame and clutching at it for support. "Where's Shiro?" 

Lance clambered to his feet, because it was always easier to see when standing upright rather than lying upside down over the back of the couch. Also, he thought maybe Keith needed to hear a hard truth or two, and since it was Keith, that probably meant he should be standing and able to dodge. "Keith, buddy, you are _not_ the one I'd have pegged as the clingy one, so this is really weird, but--maybe you should give him some space. It's not like--woah!" Keith's hands came flying at his neck, and, yeah, so he'd been entertaining the idea of dodging, but he wasn't _actually_ expecting Keith to slam him back down against the couch, hands fisted in his collar, eyes wide and wild. 

"Keith!"

"What the quiznak!"

_"Where is Shiro,"_ Keith ground out, as Lance yanked futilely at his grip, then attempted to drag his thumbs off, to no more avail. 

"He's with Allura, don't kill me," Lance managed to get out. He wasn't really choking, but the pressure of Keith's knuckles against his Adam's apple told him that could change in an instant. But instead of flying into a jealous rage--even _more_ of a rage--instead Keith's whole body slumped, a look of something that couldn't be anything but relief flying over his features. Lance had no idea what to make of it. Except that he should take the opportunity to break Keith's grip, before the homicidal maniac changed his mind about the no-choking thing. 

Before he could, Hunk loomed up behind Keith and pulled him off with enough force to send him stumbling. "Dude, _no._ "

Keith glared at the room in general, not meeting anyone's eyes, and took off in the direction of the control room. Which was a good guess, but in this case, _not_ the direction that Shiro and Allura had taken. And that was... this whole thing was weird. 

Split-second decisions were supposed to be Keith's forte, but Lance could do them just as well, thank you very much. He scrambled to his feet. "I'm going after him."

"Are you nuts?" Hunk protested. "He's like, gone unhinged. We need Shiro. Or--I'm gonna get Shiro."

"He needs a nap," Pidge called after them. 

Which was maybe true. Keith was jogging, but Lance caught up to him within a couple seconds. "Okay, what the heck's going on?"

That didn't even net him a glower. 

"No, seriously, this is affecting the team. Like, we thought it was just you turning out to be the most surprisingly clingy and jealous boyfriend ever, but if you're not jealous of your boyfriend hanging out with Allura--or wait, does Shiro not like girls at all?" That got him a look of frustrated confusion. It was a familiar look, although Lance was more used to seeing it in the mirror after the end of an all-night physics cram session, when the fatigue caught up to him and started making the numbers go wonky on the page and he had to splash cold water on his face to stay awake. "Because, I mean, Garrison gossip had him going out with that other TA, Sherry, for a while, but if he's not--"

"What are you talking about?" Keith growled. 

"Uh. You? And Shiro?"

"What about Shiro?" 

And... that wasn't really what Lance had expected. He eyed Keith with exaggerated suspicion--better, when facing an angry raccoon, to telegraph everything and make no sudden movements. "You guys... are dating, aren't you?"

"What? No."

"What?" This didn't make sense. "Okay, but, friends with benefits? Benefits being wild hot monkey sex?"

Keith stopped dead in his tracks, turning to face Lance with fists balled. Because he didn't feel like getting shoved up against a wall (in a very un-fun manner), Lance kept his arms up in a gesture of peace. Also, so that he could block any incoming punches or grabs. Luckily, for the moment Keith seemed to be content with throwing his arms up in total disbelief. "What the hell? No!" 

"But--what--then why are you suddenly stalking him?" Defensive posture be damned; Lance threw his own hands up over his head, to illustrate the size of his not-understanding. "Like, come on, you guys haven't even gone to the bathroom separately in the last three days, and we're all pretty sure that's on _you_ , like, I'm pretty sure everybody would like their own personal space at times, and those are times, unless you're having a quickie in there--"

Keith had graduated past the Pidge point of hair and moved onto Pidge-on-a-3AM-work-bender, gripping his hair by the roots with both hands. "I am not _stalking_ \--he can't be left by himself."

"Uh, okay, not to try and figure out Shiro's brain, but even I'm pretty sure he'd be just fine with--" 

"He's not fine!" Keith shouted. Frustration translated to violent motion once again, and Lance ducked but this time Keith attacked the wall, slamming his open palm against the plating. "He's not! It's all bullshit, it's crap, he goes 'oh, I'm fine'"--Keith raised both hands and deepened his voice in the most unlikely imitation of Shiro that Lance had ever seen--"and everyone _buys_ it and--and screw this! I need to find him before he's done with Allura." 

Lance blinked as he stormed away. "You know," he called after Keith, "I really don't think Shiro's ever gone--" He raised his arms in parody of Keith's imitation. Which wasn't even imitating a thing that had ever happened. Nobody had to ask Shiro if he was fine, because when he wasn't, everybody knew it. They all tried to be cool about it, and generally not ask stupid questions like 'Are you okay?' when it was obvious he wasn't, but that didn't mean it wasn't really, really obvious. And, to give all credit to Shiro, despite that, the rest of the time he still managed to radiate calm-collected-adult. So this whole thing was really... weird. Especially since if anyone in the castle wasn't fine, Keith and his raccoon eyes had to be at the top of the list. 

Also, Keith was still going the wrong way. Lance tagged after him, debating whether or not to point this out, a debate which became moot twenty seconds later when they reached the bridge and found that, surprisingly, Allura _was_ there. 

Shiro wasn't. 

Predictably: "Where's Shiro?" Keith demanded. 

"He went to speak to Coran," said Allura, looking up with a frown. "Keith, we need to talk--" 

"Later," Keith growled, and stalked out. 

Allura looked at Lance, surprise and offense written all over her. Lance shrugged. He wasn't exactly the Keith-whisperer, here. Though Shiro was obviously falling down on the job recently.

"I'm working on it," he promised, and made a beeline after Keith. 

"Lance--" she called, but the closing door cut her off. 

He caught up to Keith in the hallway, mostly because Keith had paused at an intersection and was looking back and forth between corridors like a man trapped in a maze. 

"You don't know where Coran is," said Lance. 

"No," said Keith, and headed right back to the bridge. Which--wow. Raccoon-eyed Keith was even more fearless than regular Keith, if he was willing to go back and risk Allura's wrath right after he'd walked out on her like that. Lance, being possessed of something akin to a brain, decided to linger at the door as Keith stuck his head in and demanded, "Where did he go with Coran?"

"Keith, this really isn't acceptable," said Allura, and yup, that was her _I'm about one step from putting you on the floor and stepping on you_ voice. 

"Allura, _please_." 

And... wow. Lance didn't know that Keith could sound that desperate. He kinda wished he still didn't know that. It was the kind of raw begging that nobody should ever have to try, the get-down-on-your-knees-and- _mean_ -it pleading, for something that really, _really_ mattered. 

He side-stepped gingerly through the door, and found that Keith wasn't down on his knees, but from the expression on his face, he would have kissed Allura's feet without hesitation if it would get him what he wanted. He'd have kissed _Lance's_ feet. 

Evidently, it made an impression on Allura, as well, because after a moment she reached out and tapped a button on one of her consoles. "Coran, is Shiro there with you?" 

It was Shiro himself who answered. _"I'm here, Princess."_

The look of relief on Keith's face was painful to watch. It was like before, when Lance had told him that Shiro was off with Allura, but doubled. Quadrupled. The guy actually wavered on his feet, and had to put a hand out to steady himself. 

"When you're done, Shiro, could you come back to the control room, please?"

_"Sure. On our way now."_

Keith looked like he wanted to run out to meet him in the hallway, but contained himself to pacing back and forth in front of the door. After all, he didn't know which part of the ship Shiro and Coran were coming from. Lance tried to keep an eye on him, make sure Keith wasn't going to fall over or spontaneously combust, but it was pretty hard with the way Allura was glaring at him, apparently attempting to communicate through telepathy. He made gestures back at her to indicate that he wasn't a mouse, but that he really was trying his best, and she responded with some sort of Altean gesture that Lance couldn't make heads or tails of, even when she repeated it very slowly and with much exaggeration. 

Their sign-language battle was cut short by Coran and Shiro walking into the room, which was probably for the best. And not only because Keith looked about to blow a gasket. 

Shiro stopped in the doorway when he saw Keith, leaning against it and folding his arms instead. He closed his eyes for a moment, and... yeah, he looked tired, too. Which Lance had noticed, because he wasn't _oblivious_. But he'd put it down to the bedroom rodeo that apparently wasn't happening. So it was probably due to Keith's meltdown. 

"Shiro, Keith. Your relationship difficulties are destroying the team's ability to function," Allura said. Lance winced. That was Allura for you, no punches pulled. "I agreed I would let you deal with it, Shiro--well, deal with it. _Now._ " She put her hands on her hips and glared at them. 

Lance resisted the urge to put his hands up in front of his face and peek out through his fingers. Keith was staring at Shiro--but Shiro was staring at the floor. It was just... it was weird. After a couple seconds, just when Allura looked about to demand they sort things out right here in front of witnesses, Shiro looked up, nodded to Allura, and then looked at Keith and jerked his head toward the door. 

Keith followed him out wordlessly. 

Allura sighed in exasperation. "Honestly! Are human courtships _usually_ this, this, fraught? This obsessive?" 

"Well, there's the honeymoon period, but..." Lance rubbed the back of his neck. "No, this is weird." And not just because Keith had denied that they were dating. _Had_ they been dating, and broken up, and Keith had gone crazy from being denied Shiro's amazing body, or...? He looked at Coran, in the off-chance that Shiro had said something that Coran would be willing to share, but Coran was fiddling with something on the monitors. 

"Well." Allura sniffed. "I can't say I want to interfere in their private relationship, but if they can't sort this out between themselves, we're going to have to set a new ground rule." 

Which meant that Hunk had won the bet. Or... would have won the bet. Probably. Except that it was all pretty null and void if Keith and Shiro had never been dating in the first place, wasn't it? 

Lance gave Allura a sloppy salute and wandered out, turning it over in his own thoughts. So. Keith and Shiro weren't dating, but they _were_ joined together at the hip. Because Keith had become clingier than an Arusian. Because he thought Shiro wasn't fine. But he hadn't told Allura or Coran about it. Which, they had magical alien healing pods, if Shiro was sick then that would have been the first recourse. Unless Shiro didn't want to go in a pod? But, no, Shiro wasn't sick or injured--he'd been kicking all their asses at training in the last couple days just as much as he usually did. 

He was halfway down the hall leading back to his quarters--he'd officially been in his armor for a half-hour longer than he wanted, and if the mysteries of Keith's brain were not going to be discovered today, then Lance _really_ wanted a shower to ease those bruises--when he heard Shiro's voice coming from one of the ready-rooms scattered around the ship near the bridge. 

"--to Coran about a tracking device. Something on me, you could... see where I was." Shiro sounded unusually hesitant. 

A pause. Then, Keith's voice: "A tracker wouldn't stop you." 

Without thinking, Lance paused, eyes widening. A _tracking device?_ And why was Shiro playing along with Keith's weirdness? 

"Keith. Look in a mirror. You can't keep this up--" 

"Stop making this about me!" 

"Well, I don't know what you want me to do!" 

Lance felt himself going bug-eyed. Shiro _never_ raised his voice like that, except to break up the rest of them when they were fighting--he never lost his own temper like that. Though, Keith had it coming--

"I want you to be okay."

Shiro's voice dropped as abruptly as it had risen, becoming so quiet that Lance could barely hear him. "I told you, you were wrong about--and I promised you already, I wouldn't." 

"You can't even say that like you mean it," said Keith, and though his voice didn't crack, there was a tremor in it that said... holy crow. Keith was scared. Desperate. 

Lance backed away down the corridor, in the opposite direction. He shouldn't be listening to this. He shouldn't, but somebody needed to... do something. Something was going on here that was really, really wrong. 

Garrison training, sunk deep into his bones for when his back hit a wall and he had no clue what to do, told him to go up the chain of command. But Allura was--well, no offense to Allura, but she wasn't exactly the most understanding person. And this felt like he was sitting on a landmine. Or next to a landmine. Not to mention that he barely had all the pieces, so, maybe the idea starting to come together in his head was wrong. He sure hoped it was. 

Lance turned and started for the bay where he'd left Hunk and Pidge. This was going to require backup. 

 

Hunk ambushed Shiro and Keith as they were heading out of the showers, hair still damp but both of them back in their casual clothes. 

"Shiro! Do you have time--what am I saying, we all have time. Okay, look, I've been thinking about it, and I won't take no for an answer--you are going to come with me, and we're gonna go to the kitchen and I'm teaching you how to not burn water. Because, seriously, I can't take it anymore, what if we get stuck on a planet where we have to cook our own food, or what if it's, like, a cultural necessity that you have to make the food or else we'll totally offend some aliens, and--no, Keith, you're not invited. Your lessons are tomorrow. I can handle a max of one disaster in the kitchen at the time and Shiro is the more urgent case. Uh, sorry, Shiro." 

Which was Lance's cue. _Way_ more naturally than Hunk's nervous babbling, Lance leaped out from behind the corner where he'd been waiting, completely casual as if he'd just arrived. "Keith! Ha! Okay, no more putting this off. You're coming with me and we're settling this marksmanship contest _once and for all._ " He strode up to Keith and grabbed him by the upper arm, dragging him off before Keith could recover. It probably helped that Keith's reflexes were obviously slowed by three days without sleep. 

"Wait, what--" Keith protested. 

"Sure, now's fine," said Shiro behind them, sounding bemused. 

Lance managed to get Keith back around the corner before realization kicked in and Keith actually started struggling, and even then, it was pretty pathetic. Just as he'd been able to floor him in sparring practice, Lance got him pinned. This time, it was against a wall, with his hand over Keith's mouth, so he could hiss into Keith's ear, "Shh, listen." 

Then he held his breath. _Come on, Hunk, don't let me down._

"Hunk, is this an intervention?" Shiro asked after a pause. He must have thought that Lance and Keith were already halfway to the training deck. 

"Kinda?" Hunk asked, and Lance tried not to beat his head against a wall. _Hunk, no!_ "It was actually Lance's idea, he was pretty sure you could use a break from Keith's... Keithness. But I was meaning to do this anyway, you kind of broke my heart with those, uh, 'cookies'. And the water thing. I know that Garrison provided all our food, and you probably had ration packs in space, but Shiro, you burned water."

_Hunk, yes!_ Lance silently fistpumped, earning himself a side-eye from Keith, which didn't matter, because Hunk had come through! The pain in his voice over Shiro's abysmal cooking skills sounded genuine. Actually, coming from Hunk, it probably was genuine. Smart dude, Hunk, playing to his strengths. 

"It's a talent," said Shiro, and now he just sounded amused. 

"It's horrifying," Hunk informed him. "So, if you do have time, now--please? There's a couple simple things I had in mind... uh, how to not burn water, for one, but a few things you can do with food goo, and some of the substitutes..." His voice was drifting away as he continued; they were walking off toward the kitchen. 

Keith shoved Lance away as soon as Hunk's voice was out of earshot. "What is this?" he hissed. 

"Intervention," said Lance, holding up a finger. "And, look, Pidge agreed to use her freaky camera hacking skills to monitor the hallways, so if Shiro leaves the kitchen without Hunk she'll know and will totally go and act like a limpet or something."

Keith looked pole-axed. "You--you set this up? What? Why?" 

"Because your angry-raccoon-cat-hairdryer look is terrible." Lance grabbed his arm again and tugged him down the hallway, toward the cryopod bay, where he knew Coran was currently doing some maintenance to the pods, because _he_ \--unlike Mr. Sprint-first-check-map-later--had checked ahead of time. 

But the thought of the upcoming conversation killed the triumphant feeling of seeing his plan with Hunk go off so well. It had taken some work to get Hunk and Pidge to agree. Lance hadn't wanted to share his suspicions with them, because... well, what if he was wrong? Or what if he was right, but there was some good reason that Shiro and Keith had left everyone in the dark? They were both really private people. So he'd had to bait the lure by pointing out that if they didn't give Shiro a break from Keith, and Keith a break from himself, then tomorrow's practice would be even worse, and the only way to get Keith away from Shiro was if somebody else stayed with Shiro. 

The uncertain looks that Hunk and Pidge had given him at that made Lance think that maybe they'd come to the same conclusion after all, a lot quicker and with a lot less evidence. Lance ignored that, and hoped they were all wrong. 

"My... I don't even know what to say to that," Keith huffed, rubbing at his face. But not at his hair. Not that it would have helped, likely. It didn't help his face. 

"Just accept that your mullet has failed you," Lance told him. "Not that that's anything new. Hey, Coran?"

For a moment he thought that he'd been wrong, and Coran had gone elsewhere since Lance had checked half an hour ago, but then a leg poked out from behind one of the raised cryopods and waved vigorously. "A'? O'er 'ere." 

They found him lying on his back, at some weird angle such that most of his torso was inside an open hatch to beneath the pod, with just his legs sticking out. Lance kicked his foot, gently, and the rest of him appeared, more grease-smudged than Lance had ever seen him before. Coran was usually dressed impeccably. He had a flashlight between his teeth, which he spat out as he levered himself upright and looked over his clothing with dismay. 

Lance scratched the back of his head. "Uh, sorry if this isn't a good time. It's kinda important." 

"You can always talk to me," said Coran at once, which Lance had known he would, but it made him feel better anyway. "What is it, boys?" 

"Uh." Suddenly, looking at Coran's serious face, it was harder to say than Lance had thought. Like... speaking it aloud would make it real. But it was the only way to find out, wasn't it? And if he was right, then he _had_ to. Lance took a deep breath. "Um. Keith-needs-help-because-he's-going-crazy-because-he-thinks-Shiro's-gonna-hurt-himself."

Coran blinked at him. Then, looking totally unsurprised, he transferred his gaze to Keith. 

Who stood there, blinking at Lance. Who blinked back. For a couple seconds they all stood around in silence, and then Lance saw the meaning of what he'd just said finally make it through Keith's sleep-deprived brain, and Keith straightened. "Wait, what? I--I didn't say--" 

_Wow_ , Keith was a terrible liar. 

"You said that he's not okay and somebody needs to be with him at all times," Lance said, folding his arms over his chest in the vague hope that it would make his stomach hurt less. "And that having a tracker put on him wouldn't stop him." 

And there was the indignation. "You were listening?" 

"Only to that bit," Lance said, holding up a hand quickly. "Look, is he actually--would he? Hurt himself?" _Why?_

"I don't think he'd want me discussing it," Keith said stiffly. Which--it sounded wrong, but the queasy feeling in Lance's guts kinda wanted him to agree. 

Coran, thankfully, was as level-headed as Lance had hoped he'd be, and spoke up before Lance could say something stupid like 'Okay' or 'Yeah, let's drop this and never think about it again, he's fine, he's _gotta_ be fine and that's all there is to it'. "I think his well-being comes before his pride."

Keith hesitated. "He... a couple nights ago..." 

Coran's eyes narrowed. "Has he already attempted to hurt himself?" 

"It wasn't..." Keith licked his lips. "He, uh. I stopped him, but he was going to, uh." Keith brought his hand up in a knife-blade, and swung it toward the side of his own neck. "I grabbed him, he just. Got a bit burnt." 

Oh. 

That was... even worse than Lance had thought. 

Keith let his hand go lax and scrubbed at his hair. "It wasn't serious, I got him patched up with burn cream, but... he told me I misunderstood, then he told me he wouldn't try it again--I don't. I mean, he looks like he means it, but he always looks like that. And he just--" He made the knife-hand again. "If I hadn't been right there--he didn't know I was there, at the time. I think." 

"I see," said Coran. He was looking past both Lance and Keith, into some middle distance, and the expression on his face said that he was thinking hard. It was very different from the way that Shiro stared into space, sometimes. "Normally, this would be something the Castle AI would look out for... perhaps we've been too reliant upon that in more ways that one. Where is Shiro now?"

"Hunk's trying to teach him not to burn water. It'll probably take a while." 

"Good, good..." 

Lance waited, trying not to hunch in on himself, but no plan of action was forthcoming: Coran was staring off into space, stroking his mustache, and Keith was staring miserably at the floor. Finally, Lance had to ask, "So... what to we do?" 

Coran tugged on his mustache until it snapped out of his grip, then stood up straight. "We make a plan to help him. In the meantime, with that arm of his, and with what you've described, Keith, a tracker would probably be inappropriate. I can ask him about deactivating the arm, but it may be that a direct watch is the only answer. With backup, of course." He eyed Keith. "Have you been staying up all night to keep an eye on him?" 

Keith shook his head. "He sleeps, like, four hours a night. And wakes up constantly. I'm not sure if that's me, I mean, he'd wake up every time I moved, but, sometimes he'd just--" He shrugged. 

"I see. It sounds like you desperately need a nap, Number Four. Why don't you do that, while I go talk to Shiro?" 

"I... he didn't want me to say anything..." 

"There're some times when confidences are too dangerous to be kept," Coran says gently. "I'll speak to him. It'll be alright."

 

Lance dumped Keith off at his room, since Keith was having a hard time navigating at _all_ , and Keith ended up sleeping through dinner--from which Shiro and Coran were noticably absent, too. They weren't there at breakfast the next day, either, though Keith showed up, and then Allura hounded them all through a training regime that had them pitifully bemoaning Shiro's absence. But at dinner Shiro was there, and Lance was occupied trying not to look like he was checking Shiro over surreptitiously, looking for something wrong. 

He couldn't spot anything. Shiro looked the same way he always did, calm and collected and even-keeled. Fine, except for the times that he wasn't. At training the next day he was fine, and when they raided a Galra outpost (abandoned, barely worth the effort, and without the records Pidge had been hoping for) he was fine. And Keith was able to fly in a straight line again, so that was good. And if Shiro seemed to be spending a lot of time talking to Coran, that was also good. Lance didn't need to know what it was about. So long as somebody who could handle it _did_. 

But a couple days later Shiro caught up with him in the hall after breakfast, and said, "Lance. I--thanks." 

Lance blinked. Shiro smiled, somehow not awkward, and probably would have left except Lance blurted out, totally awkward and uncool, "Anytime, man. Are you oka--I mean, how are you?" 

"Fine," said Shiro, and he actually did sound Fine, but then something in his eyes cracked and Lance couldn't be certain anymore. But Shiro didn't look like he was having a flashback, either. He looked sincere. Calm. Collected. Controlled.

...man, Lance got what Keith meant about Shiro being too good at lying. Lance nodded slowly.

Shiro's face fell just a little bit, and his smile vanished entirely. "I'll be fine," he said, and there was a hint of hesitance, of concession. He'd crossed his arms over his chest, and that made him look serious and in charge as usual but it was also kind of really defensive, wasn't it? "So. I. Just wanted to say, thanks."

"Anytime," said Lance, and before he could come up with something less awkward to say, Shiro clapped him on the shoulder and vamoosed. 

Lance looked after him. There was a tight little knot of worry in his chest, one just for Shiro, bundled up against all the other knots that belonged to feelings of home, and being overwhelmed, and not being good enough for this. But this particular knot loosened with a little bit of relief. 

Lance shoved it and all the others aside, and went to challenge Keith to that marksmanship contest.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've got any opinions on changes that should be made to the pairing or category tags, feel free to let me know. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them.


End file.
